The Academy felt different now.
It was not the sound of quills scratching or the laughter in the courtyard — those were the same — but the way Yegr noticed things others didn't. Whispers that stopped when he passed. Students slipping into unused stairwells at night. The faint smell of burnt sage lingering in rooms where no fire had been lit.
He remembered these signs from before. Small, harmless oddities that meant nothing to a young student. But Yegr was not a young student anymore.
Not truly.
---
It started during evening drills.
Sila had just finished a set of parries when she froze mid-step, eyes flicking toward the outer wall of the courtyard. Yegr followed her gaze. A cloaked figure stood at the edge of the training grounds, half-hidden behind a column.
Not faculty. Not a student.
The figure turned and slipped away, the cloak's hem vanishing around the far archway.
"Yegr," Rolen barked. "You're up!"
He hesitated only a moment before stepping forward, meeting his sparring partner's blade. But his focus was elsewhere. Every clash of steel was just noise now, masking the sound of soft footsteps retreating into the Academy's east wing.
By the time drills ended, the figure was gone.
---
That night, Yegr did not return to the dormitory.
Instead, he lingered in the library until the moonlight silvered the floors. Darin found him there, leaning over a map of the Academy's lower halls.
"You're hunting someone," Darin said, not asking.
Yegr's eyes stayed on the map. "They were watching the drills. They shouldn't have been here."
"Could be a noble's servant," Darin offered.
Yegr shook his head. "Servants don't carry obsidian talismans on red cords. That was a mark of the Shadowed Path."
Darin went pale. "You're saying the cult is already in the Academy?"
"I'm saying they were always here," Yegr replied. "We just didn't notice until it was too late."
Darin's jaw tightened. "Then we notice now."
---
The east wing of the Academy was quiet at night.
No guards. No torches. Just long corridors lit by the cold blue glow of moonlight through narrow windows. Dust drifted in the air.
Yegr moved silently, Darin a step behind. They passed classrooms with chalkboards covered in forgotten equations, storerooms stacked with practice shields, and staircases that curled into darkness.
At last, they heard it — the faint murmur of voices ahead.
Yegr gestured for silence. They crept to the edge of the hall and peered through the open doorway.
Inside, three figures knelt in a circle. A black candle burned between them, its flame bending unnaturally toward the center. Strange symbols were scrawled on the floor in a powder that shimmered faintly under the candlelight.
Yegr's heart pounded. He remembered this ritual — the Binding of the First Key. The cult had performed it a year before Jojk's rise, hidden within the very walls of the Academy.
This was where it had begun.
One of the kneeling figures turned slightly, revealing her face in profile.
Yegr froze.
It was Elen. Quiet, observant Elen — the girl who would one day fight beside him in the battle for Krossen Vale.
But here, now, she was speaking the words of the Shadowed Path.
---
Darin's whisper was barely audible. "We should go. Tell Rolen. Or the Headmaster."
Yegr's hand shot out, gripping Darin's sleeve. "No. They'll scatter if we act too soon. And I need to know who all of them are."
Darin swallowed. "So we just watch?"
"For now," Yegr said quietly, though the words burned in his throat. "For now, we watch."
The black candle's flame trembled. The powder symbols glowed brighter. And Yegr knew — this time, the storm was coming sooner than before.